IUP ANNOUNCES RETRENCHMENT NOTICES SENT TO 81 FACULTY MEMBERS

IUP announced on Friday the number of teachers who were notified that their job at the university may end at the end of the 2020-2021 academic year.

In a statement, university officials said that 81 tenure or tenure-track faculty were notified about the possibility of their employment ending at the end of the academic year.  While the highest number of faculty retrenchment was in the college of Humanities and Social Sciences, which was 25, the highest percentage of faculty cut from a specific college was in the Eberly College of Business and Information Technology, which had 13 faculty members notified about retrenchment, representing 25 percent of the faculty.

What follows is a rundown of the IUP retrenchment numbers:

• Academic Affairs – 5 (42%) 
• Eberly College of Business and Information Technology – 13 (26%)
• College of Education and Communications – 10 (12%)
• College of Fine Arts – 6 (12%)
• College of Health and Human Services – 6 (4%)
• College of Humanities and Social Sciences – 25 (18%)
• John J. and Char Kopchick College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics – 16 (14%)

Not all of the 81 faculty positions are full-time equivalent positions.

IUP said that they have been in discussion with union leadership and they anticipate to further adjust the workforce to bring the number down another 47 full-time equivalent faculty members by the start of the next school year, and since July 1^st of last year, they have reduced the number of non-faculty employees by 111.  The university will continue to use attrition and other mechanisms to try to bring the number down, including further reductions in temporary faculty, and will use the faculty union collective bargaining agreement guidelines and processes.

APSCUF said in their own statement that IUP was one of only five universities across the state system that submitted letters of retrenchment by yesterday’s deadline, and as predicted, IUP took the biggest hit.  The number of retrenchment notifications at IUP is nearly four times more than Edinboro, which announced 21 notifications.  Cheyney sent letters to six faculty members, Mansfield sent three notifications and Lock Haven sent two.  California and Clarion Universities still have active retrenchment possibilities, but did not submit any notices by yesterday’s deadline.  The next deadline is for non-tenured faculty members who have served over two years to be sent letters by December 1^st.

APSCUF said that a letter of retrenchment does not guarantee that the faculty member will not have a job next academic year.  The faculty union said they will work with the universities and at the state level to find alternatives to faculty cuts.